


Beyond Repair (We Are)

by leigh_adams



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Community: daisychain_drab, Divorce, F/M, Unhappy Ending, indifference
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-01
Updated: 2012-12-01
Packaged: 2017-11-19 23:22:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/578759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leigh_adams/pseuds/leigh_adams
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They'd been broken for years.  It just took him a long time to notice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beyond Repair (We Are)

There was a noticeable chill in the air. It wasn’t from the temperature; the cheerful fire in the hearth made sure the room was toasty and warm. No, there was a chill between the two people sitting opposite one another. It was a scene played out hundreds of times over the course of fifteen years; Pansy would spend the catching up on correspondence with her friends and associates while Ron read the _Evening Prophet_. 

Tonight, there were no letters. There was no paper. Just two people and an awkward silence.

It was Ron who broke it first -- he never could bear the quiet. “Is this really what you want?”

Pansy lifted her gaze to meet his, blue eyes unflinching and devoid of emotion. “If it wasn’t, I wouldn’t have said so.”

Ron sighed heavily and leaned back in his chair, running his hand over his face and back through his hair. “Merlin, Pans, I...” The train of thought died on his lips, and he lapsed back into the prevailing silence. His mind was far from silent, though. Thought upon thought raced through before he could even comprehend what was happening. 

He wanted to stand up, to yell at her, to _fight_ like they had so often -- fighting like cats and dogs, only to come together at the end and resolve their conflict with a tenderness that spoke to unfailing love. But he knew, deep down in the recesses of his heart, that this wasn’t something they could fix with words and lovemaking. It had gone too far for that. 

Two divorcees, both separated from their spouses before the age of thirty. They’d fallen into bed together after a night of drunken sparring, hurling insults and barbs as the heat between them grew. A rebound shag, nothing more.

The heart never listened to reason, though. And they’d both managed to ruin a perfectly good rebound shag with _feelings_. 

_When did we break?_ he wanted to ask. It wasn’t until Pansy replied that he realized he _had_ spoken aloud. 

“We broke years ago, Ronald.” She shrugged, lifting one slender shoulder. “It’s just now that you’ve noticed.”

She was right. She usually was. 

He sighed again. Merlin, when had his life become such a fuck up? He’d never listened to his family or friends, the ones who said marrying Pansy would be his downfall. Ginny especially had never understood, but he’d never known if those were her own misgivings or those of his ex-wife echoed by his sister. Maybe a little of both?

But here he was. Again. Only ten years separated him from his split with Hermione, and he was set to ring in his fortieth birthday with another divorce. 

“You must hate me.” 

It was Pansy’s turn to sigh, the sound shifting Ron’s attention from the flames to her face. He could see it now that she’d spelled it out for him; the fine lines around her eyes, the empty look in her normally bright blue eyes. She was thirty-nine years old, but the air about her suggested a woman at least fifteen years older. 

“I don’t hate you.” She shook her head. “I just don’t love you anymore.”

“How long?” A hint of heat crept into Ron’s tone. For all their troubles, and despite that fact that she was here asking _him_ for a divorce, he did love Pansy. Merlin save him, but he loved her. “When did you stop loving me? Are you even sad to leave me?”

He nearly fell out of his chair when she _laughed_. It wasn’t the joyful sound he’d heard when they were newly together, a happy laugh. This laugh was hollow and almost bitter. 

“Am I _sad_?” she echoed his question. “I’m past sad, Ronald. I was sad on the nights you were late at the Ministry. I was angry when you missed our anniversary, and I was heartbroken when I accepted that love made me blind to all your faults. I saw then that I hadn’t _wanted_ to see you -- all of you. I fell in love with the fairy tale version of you. I was so desperate for a white knight after Blaise’s dalliance with your slag of a sister-in-law that I fell in love with someone who wasn’t real. But I did love _you_.”

Pansy sighed and shifted, crossing one slim ankle over another. “If you’re asking me to cry for you, though, I won’t. My mascara’s too expensive.”

The acerbic barb, a hint of the old Pansy, went without comment. There was really nothing _to_ say -- nothing that would have mattered, anyway. And they both knew it.

“I’ll have Mr. Pritchard draw up the paperwork in the morning,” he said quietly. 

She nodded, her lips curling in a slightly sad smile. “Thank you,” she replied as she rose from the settee. He watched her cross to the door, a lump in his throat and his heart in his stomach. 

“Pansy.”

Her hand stilled on the doorknob, and she turned to glance back at him over her shoulder.

Ron swallowed the lump in his throat away. “We’re broken,” he admitted. “But despite it all, I still love you.”

He thought she might have smiled. But in the shadows from the fireplace, he might have imagined it. It was more likely that he wished she had smiled. 

“I know,” she said. “It’s just not enough.”


End file.
